Monitor buying guide (mega-thread)

Hi everyone,
A good friend of mine is looking to pick up a new monitor before $1167(he'll be paying cash).
Here is a quick rundown of what he's hunting for:
screen size: 27" (though he wouldn't mind going a bit larger if the right deal pops up)
resolution: 2560x1440

His current setup runs on an Intel graphics card, and he generally uses the PC for a little bit of everything—some light gaming, some work in Photoshop, and catching movies.

I'm not entirely sure if finding all these specs within a budget of $1167 is realistic, but I figured it was worth asking you all before he heads out to buy something!

Thanks so much for any help or suggestions you can provide!

I haven't heard anything back yet, though perhaps there isn't much specific to recommend at this stage.
My buddy recently picked up a Xiaomi 34" monitor—I actually caught a few reviews on YouTube that weren't exactly glowing—but honestly, I’m kind of blown away. The screen is fantastic; the colors are vibrant and the clarity is just spot on... 😁

I’m torn between these two monitors. There's about a $180 difference between them.
I'm not exactly a hardcore gamer—maybe a little here and there—so response time and all those other specs don't really matter to me.
It's mostly for work: coding, Office stuff, emails, browsing, and watching movies. No heavy video editing involved.

I saw some reviews on YouTube mentioning that Xiaomi builds things with cheap plastic housings.
But honestly, based on what I've seen on YouTube, the Xiaomi actually looks better to me. It seems more comfortable for everyday work, and I'm not a huge fan of that red design AOC went with.
Any thoughts? Thanks for the help!🙂

Xiaomi 34" Curved:

VS:

AOC 34" Curved:

Sean Peterson47 said:I'm having a hard time deciding between these two monitors, especially since there's about a $180 price difference between them.
I wouldn't call myself much of a gamer—maybe the occasional session here and there—so things like response time aren't really my priority right now.
My main focus will be work: programming, Office tasks, emails, browsing the web, and watching movies; I won't be doing any heavy video editing.

I happened to hear some reviewers on YouTube mentioning that Xiaomi builds their cases with cheap plastic.
However, from what I've seen in those same YouTube reviews, I don't actually get that impression; in fact, this Xiaomi model looks quite comfortable for everyday productivity and seems more aesthetically pleasing to me than the AOC option, which has that red design I'm not particularly fond of.
Does anyone have any thoughts? Thanks for the help! 🙂

Xiaomi 34" Curved:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/xiaomi-monitor-example

VS:

AOC 34" Curved:
https://www.amazon.com/aoc-monitor-example

A close friend of mine picked up the Xiaomi 34" curved model, and he's been loving it; eventually, I ended up buying one for myself too 😁. The picture quality is truly excellent.
I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say the build feels like cheap plastic...

At what distance are you planning to view that 34-inch monitor?
I was originally leaning toward the 27-inch model, but since the 32-inch version is only about $200-$300 more, I'm seriously considering making the jump instead.
My only real hesitation is whether it might be too massive for my setup. It’ll be sitting right on my desk, probably only about three feet away from my face.

I was looking at picking up this monitor:

I’m planning to hook my laptop up to it for work since I'm stuck using a 13-inch screen right now. Honestly, sitting there for long stretches is a total nightmare for my eyes.

Here’s the catch: my desk is pretty small, about 33 inches wide by 21 inches deep. I’m worried the monitor might be too massive for my setup because I'll probably be sitting only about 16 inches away from the screen. I really don't want to waste my money on something that ends up being way too big for my face. Anyone dealt with this before? Any advice? Should I pull the trigger?
A bigger desk won't fit in my room, so that's not an option.

slycyclist342 said:How far away are you sitting from that 34-inch?
I was leaning toward the 27-inch, but the 32-inch is maybe $200-$300 more, so I’m thinking I’d rather just bite the bullet and go for it.
My only worry is if it'll be massive. It's going on my desk, so we're talking maybe three feet of distance.

I've got mine at roughly that distance, and it's totally fine.
You just gotta get used to it because it feels way wider than a standard 16:9 setup.

I’ve been seriously tempted to pick up a 27" 4K monitor just to crank the scaling up to 200%. Has anyone here actually dealt with that specific setup yet?

Jesse Sanchez4 said:I’m really tempted to pick up a 27" 4K monitor and just crank the scaling up to 200%. Has anyone here actually tried running a setup like that?

Honestly, 150% should be plenty. What’s the real issue here? Are there problems with it? Well, yeah, there can be, especially when you start dealing with older software that doesn't play nice with high DPI settings...

Honestly, I ended up with the exact same result as if I had set it to 1440p, which, in my opinion, is an unnecessarily high resolution for a panel of this scale given the 0.23 dot pitch and 109 PPI.

When it comes to resolution, I still swear by the standards that were perfectly fine thirty years ago: a PPI around 90-92 and a dot pitch between 0.27 and 0.28.

A 27" 4K setup with 200% scaling misses that sweet spot entirely, but since smaller panels aren't really an option anymore, you can always just push the monitor back a bit further from your face.

I feel like 200% scaling is just way too much, but then again, 1440p feels a bit low for a 27" screen if you’re actually trying to get that crisp, pixel-free look—you know, that "Retina display" effect Apple is always talking about... though honestly, isn't 4K on anything smaller than 27" a bit overkill? Unless, of course, you're incredibly nearsighted and prefer staring at your monitor from about two inches away...

14" 1024x768 yields about 91.4 PPI with a 0.278 dot pitch
15" 1152x864 hits 96 PPI at a 0.265 dot pitch
17" 1280x1024 comes in at 96.42 PPI with a 0.263 dot pitch
19" 1400x1050 sits at 92.11 PPI with a 0.276 dot pitch

... and so on.

That’s the general ballpark.

A 1920x1080 resolution works fine on a 24" LCD, but those aren't exactly easy to find anymore—and finding one in 4K just so you can use scaling to essentially cut the resolution in half is practically unheard of.

wanderingbison9 said:A 200% scaling feels way too large for me, but 1440p is just too low of a resolution for a 27" screen if you want to avoid seeing the pixel grid—that "Retina display" effect Apple talks about. Honestly, running 4K on anything under 27" doesn't make much sense unless you're nearsighted and staring at the screen from a few inches away...

Personally, I think 1440p is the sweet spot for a 27" monitor; the pixels stay invisible. And if people are buying high-end monitors just to scale them down immediately, you have to ask—why even bother buying them in the first place?
Plus, 4K isn't some holy grail: if you can't actually see the difference, then you don't need it.

Jesse Sanchez4 said:No, because I ended up with the exact same result as if the resolution were 1440p, which I still feel is too high for a panel of this size (given the dot pitch of 0.23 and 109 PPI).

Apple 2560 px is what they use on the 13" displays for the Macbook M1. Why Apple actually needs "Retina" is something even I can't wrap my head around.

Anyone got recommendations for a TV or monitor around 30-35 inches?

Mainly looking for a monitor—this would be my primary screen, with the laptop acting as the second one.

Since our home office doubles as a guest room, it’ll pull double duty as a TV occasionally, though that’s not a dealbreaker.

Budget—honestly, I have no clue what the current market looks like... something mid-range should be fine.

silentwolf53 said:Can anyone recommend a TV or a monitor somewhere in the 30-35 inch range?

It’ll mostly be used as a monitor—my main display, really, since my laptop screen will just be acting as a secondary one.

Since our home office doubles as the guest room, we might use it as a TV every now and then, though I guess that isn't a strict requirement.

Budget-wise—honestly, I have no clue how prices work these days, but I suppose something mid-range would be perfectly fine.

https://www.amazon.com/monitors/aoc-...-16-9-56714371

That one above used to be a staple recommendation on the tech forums for a long time...

If you end up wanting something slightly bigger, maybe a TV larger than 35", this one looks decent enough to me: https://www.bestbuy.com/catalog/product/vie...android-354707

How can I figure out my current monitor type, brand, and model number? 😵 I'm looking to get the exact same one.

Take a look at the sticker on the back of the monitor.

Hey there,

I'm looking to pick up a dual monitor setup this year to replace my current Dell UltraSharp U2412M (1920x1080 60Hz). If the good stuff is out of my budget right now, I'm totally fine with buying one monitor first and grabbing the second one a few months later. So, please feel free to throw out recommendations across all price ranges.

Here’s how I’ll be using them:

Mostly: Work done directly on the PC, heavy browser usage, Microsoft Office, and remote desktop connections for work.
Quite a bit: Gaming—mostly RTS and RPGs, with a little FPS thrown in (think: Kenshi, XCOM 2, Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, Gunfire Reborn, Company of Heroes 1, and Mount & Blade 2).
Occasionally: Some light video editing in Vegas Pro 13 and messing around in Blender.

At the office, we use two 27-inch Dell UltraSharp 27 monitors (2560 x 1440). We actually ordered those because they were cheaper than our usual go-to brands like Dell or ASUS, but honestly, in my opinion, the ASUS ones always felt much more comfortable to work on.

Personally, I find working with two 27-inch screens way easier than trying to squeeze everything onto a single 34-inch ultrawide.

For my home setup, I want something higher quality than those office Philips monitors, ideally supporting:

- A minimum resolution of 2560x1440
- VESA mount compatibility
- A low blue light mode
- FreeSync
- It would be a nice bonus if they have plenty of ports (DP, HDMI, and maybe VGA), but I'm not making that a dealbreaker.

My current PC specs are:

CPU: i7 4790S 3.20GHz
RAM: 16GB
GPU: 4095MB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 super (Gigabyte)

If I save up enough, the plan is to build a new PC sometime in 2023. I'm looking at an NVMe drive and a solid "best buy" processor. At that point, I'll probably grab a quieter GPU that can actually handle games at native resolution (I've never messed with that downscaling/supersampling trick everyone raves about; I'll probably ask for advice on that when I'm ready to build the new rig). I might also try switching over to Linux as my primary OS in 2023 if game support holds up and I don't need Vegas Pro anymore, but that shouldn't really change what kind of monitor I need.

Thanks in advance for the help, and hope you all have a great day!

darkskipper5 said:Hey there,

Looking for something a bit higher quality than those Philips models for my home setup. Ideally, I want:

-minimum resolution of 2560x1440
-VESA mount
-low blue light mode
-freesync
-and it’d be great if they have plenty of ports, like DP, HDMI, and VGA, though that’s not a dealbreaker.

My current PC specs:

CPU: i7 4790S 3.20GHz
RAM: 16GB
GPU: 4095MB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 super (Gigabyte)

Thanks for the help, everyone. Have a good one!

You probably mean inputs (on the monitor); outputs are on the graphics card. A few specific monitors actually feature DP or HDMI outputs.
Why would you even need VGA if your GPU doesn't have it? And if you're specifically hunting for VGA, you're just looking at old, overpriced monitors.

What's wrong with those Philips ones anyway?

Just grab those ASUS ones you liked so much and call it a day.

Jesse Ortiz4 said:You probably mean input (on the monitor); the output is on the graphics card. There are certain monitors that actually feature a DP or HDMI output.
Why would you even need VGA if your card doesn't have it? And if you're hunting for it, you're likely looking at an old monitor that was overpriced back in the day.

What makes those Philips ones so bad in your eyes?

Just grab those ASUS ones you're happy with then.

Thanks for the reply!

I meant input—total slip of the tongue there. I’d only really use VGA if I ended up with some ancient piece of gear I had to hook up, just so I could avoid using an adapter, though honestly, it’s not a huge deal. Maybe I shouldn't have even brought it up.

As for the Philips, in my subjective opinion, the picture quality just isn't quite there compared to the newer ASUS or Dell monitors when they first hit the market (they held their own, for sure). It's not that they're "bad," per se, but when I'm buying something for myself, I want it to last at least five years, so I lean toward better quality. At work, I pick the cheaper options to stick to the budget; at home, I usually go with a "buy one now, buy the second one in a few months" approach if the upfront cost is too steep.

If it weren't for the internet and forums, I'd probably just pull the trigger on an ASUS, but I came here hoping to get some wisdom from the more experienced and smarter folks 😁.